Message-ID: <199604252320.QAA12707@cdp.igc.apc.org> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 16:20:51 -0700 From: Jagdish Parikh <mailto:jagdish@IGC.APC.ORG> Subject: From Rural India- On the Right to Information To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION
- Bunker Roy
The crucial issue facing the rural poor today in India is very
simple. Does a poor illiterate peasant, landless labourer, artisan
and rural woman have a right to demand from the Government details of
development expenditure carried out in their own village ? Do they
have the right to ask for copies of bills and vouchers and names of
persons who have been paid wages contained in 'muster rolls' on the
construction of schools, dispensaries, small dams and community
centres that on paper have been shown to have been completed? If they
are willing to pay for these documents to be photocopied which could
also serve as certified copies in case any police cases have to be
registered against village officials or politicians for embezzlement,
corruption or misappropriation, can the government refuse?
In 1990 a mass based organisation called the Mazdoor (workers)
Kisan (farmers) Shakti (strength) Sangathan (organisation) MKSS
started working with the very poor peasants in an area what is openly
acknowledged as one of the worst and most backward regions of
Rajasthan-Bhim Tehsil on the border of the 3 districts of Pali, Ajmer
and Rajsamand. The idea of the MKSS was to find out the root
problems behind the issue over non-payment of wages to workers on
government works under the department of forests and public works.
At every stage they were stalled when they asked for information and
details of expenditure on schools, despensaries, drinking water
schemes, rural housing anicuts, dams and community centres. On paper
they were shown to be complete but to the whole village it was plain
to see that someone had misappropriated the funds-school buildings
with no roof, dispensaries with no walls, dams left incomplete and
community centres with no doors or windows. Who had the details, the
MKSS wanted to know. Everyone knew but no one wanted to say.
As in every government there are some-very few-bureaucrats who
are concerned that funds should reach the poor and be spent wisely
and properly. After years of knocking on doors one young recently
recruited IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer managed to
extract some details from the Block office. In order to share this
information in public with the people of the same village (Kot Kirana
in Pali District) the MKSS organised the first Jan Sunwayi (Peoples
Hearings) in the history of Rajasthan. At the outset the MKSS had
insisted it was a hearing not a court (adalat). Everyone was welcome
to listen and respond-politician, administrator, landless labourer
and private contractor- and if they wished to say something to defend
themselves the MKSS would give them the platform.
Corruption is nothing new. There is no one in the villages in
Rajasthan who does not think that the village officials and
politicians are scoundrels and thieves. So what is new? Very little
can be done about it: from the top to the bottom public money is
being embezzled. What can one Jan Sunwayi do? By reading the details
of the bills and vouchers and names of people they made it very
personal. The audience who heard the names being read out howled and
screamed at the brazenness of the officials and their elected
leaders. The response was electrifying and all of a sudden it was
no longer a game. With the phenomenal response from the people to
the first Public Hearing several other Public Hearings were organised
from December 1994 to April 1995 in the same region. With every
Public Hearing in spite of polite invitations from the MKSS to the
village officials and politicians they stayed away and damned
themselves by their silence and absence. Poor people came by the
hundreds to listen in pin drop silence to embezzlement of public
funds in such a large scale in the name of the poor. As the names
and details were read out more and more cases started coming out in
the open. The collective rage and anger was enough to make one
engineer of the State Electricity Board return Rs.15,000 in public he
had extracted from a poor farmer-the one and only instance of money
ever being returned in Rajasthan because of public pressure and
humiliation.
It was through this process that two demands emerged with one
voice from all the Public Hearings. One, that any citizen from the
village should have the right to make photocopies of all bills,
vouchers and muster rolls on payment of any work done by government
in their village. Two, that funds embezzled and misappropriated
should be recovered from these village officials and politicians,
their property be attached, and assets frozen and publicly auctioned
and that money recovered should be spent back in that same village.
No departmental enquiry, no due process of law, no cases to be
registered-just return the money and lets get on with it.
The government stand all along was that the MKSS was raising a
non-issue. There is nothing to stop any villager from taking this
information at the Block level, the government insisted. The MKSS
was playing politics and it was misleading the people with
disinformation. Until the union of Gram Sevaks (the lowest
development officials of the government) in January 1995 decided to
declare a strike on grounds that they refuse to part with any details
of expenditure to anyone-thus playing neatly into the MKSS's hands
and at the same time making the government look extremely foolish.
In April 1995 in an historic announcement on the floor of the
State Assembly the Chief Minister of Rajasthan without naming the
MKSS declared that any citizen has the right to information. On
payment he/she could demand and receive details of expenditure on
work done over the last 5 years in their villages and all the
documents could be photocopied as evidence should they want to use it
in the future . Since India' was independence no State Government
has ever made such a sweeping commitment and the courage and vision
of the Chief Minister was unanimously applauded.
With the commitment of the Chief Minister on the floor of the
House what had to follow were government orders. The MKSS waited
patiently. Nothing was coming out from the Director of Panchayats
(local self-Government). So many assurances have been made on the
floor, they were told, and not all have been converted into orders.
The MKSS waited one full year.
On the 6th April 1996 the MKSS declared they were going to organise
an indefinite strike in the town of Beawer in Ajmer District
demanding that the orders be issued on the same assurances given by
the Chief Minister on the Floor of the State Assembly, no more or
less.
In a classic but expected response of double-speak so typical of
governments, while declaring that they will not ever succumb to
pressure of any kind hastily issued an order that very night. The
order did not mention the right of photocopying documents but
allowed for 'inspection' and writing details (of pages and pages) by
hand with no certification possible. In a State where the
percentage of literacy is so low and they have no hope of copying
any documents such an order borders on the farcical. What the Chief
Minister committed on behalf of government the bureaucracy mauled
and distorted out of sense and content.
The MKSS refused to call off the strike. From the 6th April the
strike continues and the response from the common man and woman from
the village and town to the strike has been phenomenal. Wheat,
vegetables, sugar cane juice keep coming in as donations. Offers of
support to stay, to feed, to print pamphlets free and an ever
sympatheic regional press have bewildered the members of the MKSS and
such expression of unconditional support has carried them into their
17th day. Never before has Beawer ever seen such an outpour of
affection and understanding to a cause they see just and which they
want the MKSS to win. It cuts across party lines. Supporters of the
major political parties in India BJP, the Congress, the Shiv Sena and
the trade unions with all affiliations come to the open meetings and
sit and support the MKSS. Eminent Journalists like Nikhil
Chakravarty, Kuldip Nayar, Prabhat Joshi, Medha Patkar spear heading
the agitation against the Narmada Dam in Gujarat have all come and
addressed the growing public and egged the MKSS to continue-not give
up now. Make the government sweat and bend-not crawl. They will
have to, what with the assurance given by the Chief Minister.
For once the political acumen of the Chief Minister has let him
down. The bureaucracy must have informed him the MKSS is just one
other fly by night sort of mass organisation that has no base, no
work but with political ambitions. Just another NGO trying to
capitalise on the election fever: it will go away. They want to
embarass the government. When all along the government has
cooperated with them now they only want to stab the bureaucracy in
the back.
With this attitude they have completely missed the point. By
passing this order the government will only enhance their own
prestige in the outside world. What the MKSS has done to make this
possible will be forgotten down the line. They could capitalise on
this order with the World Bank, with bi-lateral donors with so many
who hold the Right to Information dear and necessary for good
governance. They will applaud the Rajasthan Government. Instead
when statesmanship and magnanimity is called for and showing some
grace under pressure we see indecision. With every day that passes
the MKSS as a result is growing stronger, more confident and ever so
hopeful with such fantastic support from the people of Beawer that
their cause is just. In a sense whatever the outcome the MKSS has
already won-raising the issue of the Right to Information and
demystifying in a manner that every peasant, industrial worker and
landless labourer now understands. With or without the MKSS now the
demand for information on development expenditure will increase.